Fracking Synthesis

Ryan Shumate

Dr. Hill Taylor

ENG 101

March 1^st 2012

Fracking Synthesis

            After reading the article on Natural Gas Fracking linked to Water Contamination, I think that the Environmental Protection Agency needs more accurate data before it can accuse fracking for water contamination. Due to the EPA being a government agency, they should be required to use data from outside sources so that their data is not considered bias. For example, “there was a single detection of 2-BE among all the samples collected in the deep monitoring wells. It was found in one sample by only one of three labs.” Obviously more tests need to be run to find out if it is certain that fracking is the cause for ground water contamination. There are hundreds of other possible causes for ground water contamination and people are using this to fight fracking. Fracking is allowing the United States to actually produce more natural gas. The United States is already far enough behind the way it is with production. Our society runs on fossil fuels and if we do not have them, it will fail. Damaging the environment to withdraw these fossil fuels is sometimes necessary. New water filters can be designed to get rid of contaminates in the ground water. The ground water already has to go through filters before we drink it anyways, so it’s just another filter we will have to use. There are some necessary sacrifices we have to make to continue to live the way we do and the environment is one of them. However, if the EPA can provide sufficient data saying the fracking is a major cause in groundwater contamination, then it needs to be looked at. Until they can provide sufficient data that says otherwise, they should continue fracking.